Which of these scenarios best describe your community?

  1. Your ICSP is rocking your community; your whole organizational culture and decision-making processes are aligned with the goals; your monitoring efforts show that you’re making steady progress towards the goals; and lots of community partners are implementing actions.
  2. Your ICSP goals have inspired your updated and aligned Official Community Plan policies and/or one or two other plans and that’s about it.
  3. Your ICSP is sort of sitting on the shelf, with no real attention paid to it.
  4. You’ve been thinking about developing an ICSP but don’t have the resources or it’s not a priority.
  5. What’s an ICSP?

If scenario (1) best describes your community, we want to profile and share your practices and learnings. Let’s connect!

If scenario (4) or (5) is where you’re at, let’s talk to see how we can help.

If scenarios (2) or (3) best describe your community, have a look at these examples of leading municipal initiatives that take the plan off the shelf and integrate it more effectively into organizational culture and decision-making, as well as renewing community interest.

  1. The City of Surrey Sustainability Charter update

What: The City of Surrey is updating its Sustainability Charter, which was adopted by Council in 2007. The purpose of the update is to check-in on the goals, reorganize it into integrated community themes (from the current three pillar approach), and deepen embedment into the City’s culture.

How: (1) Online survey with staff (over 700 respondents), interviews with all City managers and Council. (2) Workshop with managers and key departmental staff to identify ways to further embed the Charter goals into departmental planning and decision-making. (3) Restructuring of Charter into integrated themes. (4) Workshops with all City Advisory Committees and stakeholders to get feedback on restructured Charter and goals.  (5) Revisit indicators to ensure alignment with Charter goals.

  1. District of Tofino Strategic Planning

What: The District of Tofino completed its ICSP in 2014 and wanted to ensure that the broad community goals would also guide Council strategies and priority setting.

How: Council and senior staff participated in two full-day strategic planning sessions using the goals of their ICSP to structure their strategic plan, align key directions (big moves) and prioritize the specific key deliverables (actions) they should aim to complete in the next four years based on available resources and opportunities that arise. 3. Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) Action Planning.

  1. Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) Action Planning

What: The SCRD completed and adopted their regional Sustainability Plan, We Envision, in 2012. The Plan is organized into 13 strategic directions, each with a set of targets and actions to work on and to achieve.

How: The SCRD has set up Roundtables with regional community organizations and stakeholders to come together on an annual schedule to review what’s been done to date, and to identify the next actions to take – by all the partners – to keep moving towards their targets and goals. Next step is to develop indicators to help monitor progress towards the goals.

  1. Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) Whistler2020 Monitoring and Evaluation

What: The RMOW developed 94 indicators based on the Desired Outcomes articulated in its integrated community sustainability plan, Whistler2020.

How: Each year, data is gathered through a community survey and quantitative data sources to update and report on the indicators, develop a scorecard that provides a snapshot of the community’s progress in each of five high-level priority areas, and a more detailed analysis of the rest of the indicators. The results are reported to the community, and are evaluated and used by the RMOW staff/Council as well as partner organizations each year to inform strategic and business planning.

Contact us on 604-388-8421, if you want to talk about where you’re at, or to take our quick on-line self-assessment.